We Begin

Hopefully, by now, you have ready my adventures with my new expanded patio door. Hopefully, you read all the bumps along the way. It still awaits finishing as do the walls and ceiling. Anyways, I figured my issues were over and I woulod be home free. After all, this was a straight door replacement of a door with side panels. This was a two day install made a bit longer as you will see as we go through this story.

I had carefully chosen a brown to cover up the second worst dark blue downstairs to a light brown which I expect to look as good with new cherry door as with the oak floors.

Are You Kidding Me?

I had snooped around when they unloaded the truck and tucked this door into my grarage. I was expecting the outside to be fiberglass and this color. Turns out this was the inside of the door missing the cherry I was expecting to match my other door. Remeber when I said that my sales person was going to get me a quote to have their person finish both doors???????? Hmmmm, where is my cherry to finish?????? When I call her back about this disaster she asks if there is wood bonded to the door. Hmmmmmm, is that a thing? When I said no and I did not want the door, she said that I would be paying for it whether they installed it or not. If I refused the install, they would simmply truck it away and their concierge team would call periodically to try to set up a new install appoinment. They are too huge a company to fight, when they take a stance like this. This was now the February after May 2022 when I started this whole process. To this day I do not understand how that 5 hour meeting led to this nightmare. So, I went ahead and had the door installed which was also to have a storm door. I had every intention of getting some compensation off the $37,074 for the two doors considering all the issues just at this point.

Beat Down With All Of The Problems With Renewal By Andersen!

As the removal of the old door proceeded and they got the new door in place, but not done yet, I wandered out to see what the rest of the team was doing. They were in the process of cutting down the verticle post of the storm door to the height of a "normal" door. This was a generic flat black storm door that was going to destroy the looks of the brown door by only leaving the side lights exposed as the brown I had wanted outside. I called that off saying, there was no way that door was going on my new door. They stopped. My doorbell was hanging out of the vinyl siding, the basic door was in, the surround looked horrid, and I had had enough. I told them all to leave. They were going to have to come back anyways as the building inspector came too late on the second day for them to trim out the patio door and do the sheetrock and taping. I was very very upset and angry with them.

So How Did It Look And Work

By keeping off that dreadful storm door, which could be installed elsewhere by Renewal By Andersen, The outside of the door looked good even with what I thought was the unfinished New Endgland Surround. The door made a very good statement in brown on the front of my home. The door worked well. I was not wild about the outside trim which was some sort of simualed wood in either painted meatal trim or vinyl. But even though it was not the cherry I wanted inside, that little bit of darkness in the area framed by the front stairs and tile looked good. It was particularly nice as going all glass is making the difference I was expecting. I changed my order from plane glass to security glass in a ribed waterfall pattern. I still think changing out the glass at $850 to be a huge rip, however it was a solid change. Eventually the door got two more pieces of okk trim between the side lights and the door.

Were There Still More Issues With The Front Door? Hell Yes

Now we move on the the New England Surround which was part of the order. This picture is to remind you where we started with my existing suround. Of particular note is the interesting side pillars and a weighting of the effect to significant top horizontal section.

Can You Do a New England Surround? Yes We Can, That Is What I Was Told - I Was Shown This

So I thought, OK, not bad. There were clean lines with the siding, interesting columns, and a significant weighting to the top horizonal section as I had started with.

What Do You Mean? That New England Surround Is Not Acceptable!

Little did I know, when kicked them away at the end of the second install day with with my doorbell wires hanging out the siding, that they thought this was going to be my finished surround. As I found out from the very nice install team, they were not very busy at the momment becuase the yearly discounts were being promoted to bring in the next round of installs. Because it comes into play later, I heard TV ads offering 10% order discounts and $500 per door. WOW, in my case that would have been between $3,700 with another $1,000 for the two doors. Realizing they expected this to be my surround, lets just say I was not very pleasant with "important people" up the ladder from my sales person who I refused to deal with after she said "either way", installed or not, I was paying for the solid fiberglass door.

NO, Hell No! Where Do I Start?

• It was still way narrower than my orriginal surround.


• Though it was a little thicker, this was because of a rain stop surrounding it which was nothing short of a gross eye catcher. This, even before the pieced in fabrication started collecting dirt highlights at each joint. Count them. There are 8 fabricated metal joints at the top by that whimpy section.


• Then there is the totallyy missing emphasis to the top horizonal section.


• Renewal By Andersen and I have a mutual dislike. But I am a firm believer of don't get mad, get even. That is exactly why internet reviews are so important. Trust me, I will be giving my review where ever I can.

I have to give it up to the install team I had, the lead was excellent. When I again was very upset and said what I was upset about, he said "we can do that and without custom milling". He said "a layered approach could hide the rain protection and standard components could approach what you were expecting". It all seemed that there in this case was substantial communication issues with providing what I thought I ordered after a 5 hour sales approach. So again I went back to the powers that be and said "This lead can do what I had expect, has the design that would be ok, and I expected him to be allowed to finally fix this last fixable item".

Finally, That's My New England Surround

Little did I know, when I had had it from yet massive problems with the front door this time, kicked them away at the end of the second with with my doorbell wires hanging out the siding, that the first surround was going to be my finnished surround. As I found out from the very nice install team, they were not very busy at the momment becuase the yearly discounts were being promoted to bring in the next round of installs. Because it comes into play later, I heard TV ads offering 10% order discounts and $500 per door. WOW, in my case that would have been between $3,700 with another $1,000 for the two doors. Realizing they expected this to be my surround, lets just say I was not very pleasant with "important people" up the ladder from my sales person who I refused to deal with after she said either way I was paying for the solid fiberglass door. I had to fight for even this surround completion on a fiberglass door I expected to be cherry to match the otyher door ordered at the same time.